If You Could Hear What I See

I totally enjoyed this book. Kathy is an inspiration and I wish her nothing but continued success in the future. The book is hard to believe in some points - that so many bad things can happen to one person. It is amazing to see the metamorphasis Kathy goes through in her life and how the total of all of her life's experiences both good and bad have shaped who she is today. She's triumphant!

Kathy's severe hearing loss lead to an early diagnosis of mental retardation: she was also molested, run over, and stricken with cancer all before the age of thirty but she never lost her sense of humor. If You Could See What I Hear provides her life story and how she kept this sense of humor through the darkest of days. A powerful memoir and personal account of hope.

Incredibly moving and inspirational. It made me laugh and made me cry. But most of all it made me celebrate the wonderful human being Kathy is - and the lessons we can all learn from her experiences. Should be required reading - especially for young people setting out to find their lives.Fern Field Brooks

"Learn to use what you have instead of worrying about what you don't." That advice pretty well sums up this book, which delivers the message with a wry, self-effacing joke and a smile.Several years ago, my wife and I attended a Tony Robbins seminar in which Ms. Buckley was one of the fellow participants who was "working on herself" just like the rest of us. She was doing this, although she had often been a motivational speaker at similar sessions for Mr. Robbins. I was intensely touched by her then, and am even more moved now by reading about her story in detail. As she says, Ms. Buckley was a victim of ignorance . . . that of others and her own. Probably due to one or the other of severe childhood problems, she has very little hearing. Neither her parents or the school realized this until she was 8. The remediation helped a little, but not enough. She was a poor lip reader, no one tried to make it easier for her, she didn't have hearing aids that did her any good, and schools generally did not give her the special support she needed. As a result, she was more often treated as a mentally retarded person or as a trouble-maker than as a hearing-impaired person. It's hard to know what you don't know in that situation. In many cases, she describes the shock of hearing simple things for the first time (like the laughter of a baby, paper rustling, and the warning bell in a car).Her second challenge was that having so many things to learn, she was often shunned by others. This made developing her emotional connections slow and difficult. Her parents were not very communicative (even for those who could hear them), and friends and mentors were the exception rather than the rule. As a result, Ms. Buckley reached a sense of self-awareness and emotional connection that most adults have at 22 only after age 40. The story of how she got there is fascinating. You'll feel like it's happening to you. In addition to the hearing problems, she also had to overcome challenges related to having cervical cancer before she was 30, almost dying in a car accident (while lying peacefully on a beach), and being molested as a girl. From her trials emerged a smart, caring, wonderful woman whom anyone would want to know and have as a friend. As to those who ignored her when she needed help, you come away thinking that they were the ones who lost out rather than Ms. Buckley.Some of the many poignant moments in the book include going to her first confession and not knowing what was going on in the confessional, having her first menstrual period without any advance education or explanation after it occurred, forgiving her molester, and learning to be a mentor to others.Anyone who thinks they have it rough and have the right to feel sorry for themselves rather than taking action can learn a lot from this book. As powerful as the book is, I strongly urge you to meet her in person . . . through her motivational speeches, her comedy routines, or her one-woman show

Kathy Buckley has led an extraordinary life that enables anybody who reads "If You Could See What I Hear" to gain a new perspective. This book is about overcoming odds to lead a productive life. Kathy describes her hard-knocks in a very real way without taking on a "feel sorry for me" tone. She describes in detail how she went from "I can't" to "I can" in a manner that the reader will be forced to start looking at their own lives to see they have choice to say "I can". This book gives Kathy the ability to go into greater precious detail, then in her stage act, on many of her life's experiences and how she overcame the setbacks. If you've seen her act and was left with questions like "who, what, where or when did you get run over by a Jeep?", the answers are here.This book is recommended for teenagers, people with disabilities, people who feel like they have been `cornered' into a life they do not desire, and those whose lives are significantly good but just need a reality check on the perspective of those who don't have it as great.Thank you Kathy for giving us this opportunity to look a little deeper look into your life.